Modern hydraulic power transmissions generally include a variable displacement pump, one or more motors and controls which direct the displacement of the pump to comply with the needs of the motors. These controls keep the system pressure from exceeding maximum limits and also attempt to keep the flow rate from the pump at the present needs of the system. Systems of this nature are typified in U.S. Pat. No. 3,508,847. A pressure compensating control adjusts the pump displacement by sensing the pressure at the pump outlet while the pump flow control senses the difference in pressure upstream and downstream of an orifice in the pump discharge flow. The present invention is an additional automatic control to avoid running the pump at a high pressure while a motor is lowering a heavy static load. This control is somewhat similar to the manual control described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,486,334 in that the additional control gives a signal to the flow control servo to reduce pump pressure to standby under a certain condition where the servo would otherwise sense a condition requiring more pressure and cause a waste of energy. This special condition of lowering a heavy static load is the condition where the present invention functions.